The Mt. Ararat High and Colby College grad who has enjoyed much success with her book The Lobster Chronicles will speak at the Auxiliary's fall luncheon Tuesday, Oct. 29. For more information call 373-6015.

The author of The Lobster Chronicles, Linda Greenlaw of Isle au Haut, is the featured speaker at the fall luncheon and annual meeting of the Mid Coast Hospital Auxiliary, Tuesday, Oct. 29, at Taste of Maine, Route 1. A social hour begins at 11:30 a.m. with luncheon at noon.

Greenlaw, also the author of The Hungry Ocean, will tell tales of her experiences of being a fisherman out of fishing communities on the eastern seaboard and how she wrote her books. She started her career as a cook on a fishing boat out of Orr's island, moved up to become a captain of a swordfishing boat in the Grand Banks, and now has her own lobster boat in Maine working 400 traps with her father Jim, retired from BIW, as her sternman on the Mattie Belle. THe boat was named after her grandmother.

Greenlaw’s first book details her work at sea for 17 years as a swordfish captain and her second book chronicles life on a small island in Penobscot Bay, where her family has lived for five generations. Her ability to captain a boat was made famous by Sebastain Junger in his book The Perfect Storm, and when publishers started calling for her to write a book, she did not take them seriously at first. Now, the great success of the first book led the way for second, with a third, a novel, already underway.

Greenlaw’s plan for a more simple life on Isle au Haut with only 40 year-round residents has not worked the way she might have envisioned it. Nevertheless, the rewards are great as she writes in this celebration of family and community, giving an interesting perspective from a 41-year old woman’s point of view.

She writes about lobstering, of course, and how she and her father communicate during their hauling days. Her love for her family is especially clear when she writes about her mother Martha, president of the Brunswick Auxiliary 20 years ago. Small town politics and pressures, antics of the island characters, territorial battles among fishermen, and her own hopes and dreams all make for thoughtful and fun reading. Island residents all up and down the coast of Maine can easily relate to Greenlaw’s stories.

Greenlaw will be “coming home,” so to speak, to her old neighborhood, because she grew up in Topsham, graduated from Mt. Ararat High School, and then went on to graduate from Colby College in Waterville, studying in English and political science--good preparation for law school she thought.

The public is invited to the luncheon and reservations may be made by Oct. 21 by sending a check for $18 for non-members or $15 for members, to MCH Auxiliary, 123 Medical Center Dr., Brunswick, ME 04011. Auxiliary membership is $10 per year, and may be included with the luncheon reservation. Please indicate a choice of seafood or chicken casserole. For more information, please call the MCH Volunteer Services Dept. at 207-373-6015.